Free Verse

Your voice to guide me Your arms to hold me Your love to carry me   Through the turmoil & the strife The joy & laughter Home is you

Untethered, I float Buffeted by the winds of life Never feeling grounded

Love Remains I’ve heard it said… That even if a man came back from the dead We still wouldn’t listen to a word that he spoke We’d tell stories about him around fire and smoke We’d call him a ghost So we’d haunt ourselves with old memories instead And leave his ghost to grow lonely inside his own head   I once knew a man They cut off his hand Buried it in the African...

All of this is for you   Every star in the sky That you followed out of your own personal Egypt All of this is for you   Every stone you laid your head upon To watch the angels ascend and descend All of this is for you   This stable outside of Jerusalem This feeding trough This bed of hay The smell of the blemished beasts That sustain the lives of your people The...

Breath that sounds like God’s name in my lungs The joy of connection Every rebellious moment of solidarity In a world determined to isolate Fellowship with those who think they follow Christ Fellowship with those who think they don’t Fellowship with every living thing Existence I like it here And I’m glad I was invited To this awkward party 50 years ago Many have left and gone home But other guests just keep arriving And...

The Devil Wins My Tears Once Again   You speak but your eyes tell the truth Deceit and lies spew forth from your mouth Hidden behind the walls of complements Forever speaking but never honestly My pain wells up behind a mask of caring My tears held back for none to see I silently carry the burden of Love Craving only Truth and Honesty from my partner in life I starve for Love’s sweet embrace...

Something so Small   Who ever knew the power in such a tiny thing. Many will claim to come save the day. Many will fall utterly short in that task. Like an Angel on high you came. Dispensing kindness without an ounce of selfishness. Miniscule in size, but massive in Heart. You have the ability to reach into one’s soul and heal them. What once was a broken husk is repaired. Crumbled and rotten is...

It’s always there It’s the air that we breathe in It’s the water that we swim in It’s the current that takes us Down to the altar and makes us Drown   This water, it used to be wine Until we tried to trade our shame For thirty silver coins salvaged from a shipwreck that We bought off the docks with a hand written check that… Bounced   And now Shame is the currency we...

On my beach Is a maternity room Where poems are born. As both mother and midwife I exist in the middle space; The balance Between gestating ideas And the arrival of Living words.   I don’t create truth. I painfully push it out, Cut it from my body, Wipe the blood from it, Measure its length and weight, Count its toes, Swaddle it in a blanket of words, Then lay it carefully in your arms....

You sleep like a feather Slipping silently  From the nest of a dove Over a river at night Just one note from a  Muffled song Even just a slight breath of air And there you are Drifting down To the icy water Wide awake   Me? I sleep like a brick Like shoes made of concrete Encased in the mud Beneath the bridge Beneath the fishes A mouth full of gravity I sleep on borrowed...